Underworld - Level Up or Die: A LitRPG Series Page 5

  “I say we just wait until it's dark and sneak out from here,” Russ whispered.

  “Have you guys seen any exits?” Olivia rolled her eyes.

  A commotion came from the hall just outside the dining hall interrupting the conversation. Numerous feet echoed through the stone complex. It first headed toward the merchants’ quarter just as we had at first. Minutes passed before the large group joined us. The group of 10 or so people following the guy who had pumped his strength entered the dining hall like they were conquering heroes.

  I admit that the two pretty girls following as groupies caused me a tickle of jealousy. It grew when it became obvious they had a surprisingly successful hunt. I shook the absurdity of the thought away and nodded a greeting as they passed.

  A cheerful fellow with curly blond hair walked up to us. “Hey, guys! How’d everything go? We found a zombie boss and defeated it. Everyone got like three levels with one kill!”

  “Congratz!” Aeris was the first to reply. “We mostly just focused on leveling our skills in the first zombie area so we only got about fifteen levels each.”

  My respect for her grew. She didn’t boast or sugarcoat anything.

  “Hey, that’s not bad. We got about 20 a piece, but we were also looking for harder mobs.”

  Others wished him well, but before he left I needed some information.

  “What was the zombie boss like?” A smile reached my eyes.

  “Oh. He was like seven feet tall, and other zombies seemed to follow him around. He was level 75 and was named. His name was Boris.”

  It was probably more likely an elite named mob, not a true boss, but still, the first any of us had run into. You could call it a lesser boss if you liked. Named monsters in games usually have a special history and are more powerful. That doesn’t make them full on bosses though. Those are usually on an entirely other level.

  “Nice!” I encouraged without correcting him. “Did he drop anything good?”

  An excited nod toward the big guy in their group pointed out what had dropped. He wore a dull skull cap atop his head.

  “The helmet also has the magical property of adding +20 to HP. Awesome, huh?”

  It was indeed awesome. 20 HP wasn’t really much, but just knowing what was possible was extremely important info.

  “One last thing, did you guys see any other mobs besides skeletons and zombies?”

  “Only stronger skeletons.”

  So it seemed stronger skeletons came after the zombies. I thanked him for the information.

  Chapter 6 – Going Solo

  That night, after everyone was asleep, or at least trying to sleep through the many sobs, I cast heal on myself, which seemed to recover my mental and physical endurance just as well as sleep would. How long it would last I didn’t know. I needed to test its effects and whether it really was a substitute for sleep or not. My inventory had a good stock of water and bread, so I headed into the labyrinth.

  Currently, I was saving the attribute points I earned earlier. I was torn between upping Intelligence to 100 for the likely bonus or just stacking everything into Wisdom. No telling if there would be additional bonuses at 200, 300 and so on.

  I began my hunting with zombies. Since I hadn’t used Heal against them I needed to test it before I moved on. Thankfully they were just as slow as the skeletons had been and weren’t grouped together. I knew from earlier they were aggressive when they saw me though, so I had to be careful. If I got too close they would attack.

  The first one that noticed me I cast Heal on. It didn’t kill it. Sadly monsters didn’t have health bars so I didn’t know how well I was doing. Casting Heal again killed it.

  On the next one, I cast Decay first, which cost only 10 MP now. Much cheaper than Heal, even though that only cost 39 MP now. This time the zombie died in one shot. This would save me quite a bit of mana.

  So at least I knew that worked, but I didn’t yet understand why.

  An experiment commenced where I started to issue any command I could think of that was related to observation. If you ever get stuck in a dungeon and see a strange guy making circles around his eyes like he has pretend binoculars, he’s not crazy but trying to find his examine skill. A more interesting question. How stupid do you think he feels when he exhausts every idea he has and concludes he doesn’t have one?

  Out of desperation, I tried activating Creature Observation.

  A window populated and my mouth dropped open. Seriously? So it’s not just passive, eh?

  Lesser Zombie

  Level 56

  600 HP

  0 MP

  Str: 70

  Dex: 10

  Con: 50

  Int: 2

  Wis: 2

  Description:

  Dead human risen to life. Mindless devourer of raw flesh.

  This made Blue Magic much more valuable than just stealing creatures’ abilities. I was the only person that had such in-depth info on the monsters I faced. It could be life-saving.

  More importantly, I found out basically how Decay worked. It put an attribute penalty of 20% on all physical stats like Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution, lowering the HP of a monster by 20%. In addition, it added a 20% bonus to damage from light magic. This was stackable but only went up 5% for each additional cast. It also increased 1% every minute on its own. With my current level of heal, I could just kill one with all my buffs.

  Also, my heal spell did double damage against the undead. It was like a super critical attack!

  It was then that my hunt truly began. I started by casting Decay on five of the closest zombies. The closest of all I cast Pain on. As it squirmed, I healed each one, in turn, trying to finish the other four off before the fifth was done with the 3-second stun Pain gave it. I could do this twice before I needed to rest.

  To fully regenerate all of my MP it took about 7 minutes. As you can imagine, I left myself a little bit of extra mana in case something went wrong. Approximately two hours later I moved to the next room and continued my strategy. My spells slowly leveled as did I.

  That was when I heard a quick patter of feet. Zombies only gave off the random moan and didn’t really move fast enough to make much noise. When I heard the sound it gave away the cause of the noise’s position immediately.

  It was no taller than five foot, the shortest zombie I had seen yet, but with its small size came a huge jump in speed. There was little time to think up a strategy because it was coming right at me.

  My first reaction was to cast Pain. The spell did its job, but I feared it wouldn’t last as long as normal. It was a named monster. Immediately after, I used Creature Observation.

  Boris the Runner

  Level 75

  HP 1400

  MP 0

  Str: 100

  Dex: 40

  Con: 180

  Int: 5

  Wis: 2

  Description:

  Dead human raised to life. Mindless devourer of raw flesh.

  Special bonus due to his past. Runner in life. Runner in death.

  1400 HP? I only had half my mana to fight it. So I spammed Decay on it, half panicked. I have no idea how many times I cast it, but Pain had worn off. Not sure I had enough MP left I cast Heal as it ran at me.

  The first cast didn’t kill it! I turned, readying to run.

  Only a meter away I cast it again and leaped to the side. Struggling to place my mace between it and me, I turned and saw there was no need. It was dead.

  The Level Up notification was a relief to see.

  I cheered up when I saw that there was a pair of boots that had been dropped by the monster. They were much better than mine just by looking at them, but the size wasn’t quite right and I found no way to identify if they were magic or not. I would ask the merchants, if any of them were still open. It was time to head back anyway. That was too close of a call. I would be stingier with my mana in the future when soloing just to be safe.

  Before leaving, I was close to a far wall,
so I sat down to relax and healed myself. I’d wait for my mana to fully recharge before going back.

  Movement from the entrance of the room caused me to stiffen where I sat. Suddenly my kidnapper was walking past, looking over his shoulder multiple times as he went. The imp’s eyes never found me on the far side of the room.

  What would one of the Mistress’s evil creatures have to hide? What was he up to?

  As foolish as it might sound, I followed him. Not closely by any means, for I already knew he was suspecting someone. Just that day my entire world had been turned upside down. If there was some information I could learn that might help me I would take the chance.

  The zombies were surprisingly easy to weave through. He had also already left this room, so killing one or two was safe.

  When I spied into the next room, I saw him meet with a hooded figure. They both headed to a side room.

  Just my luck there was another room just beside them that would keep me out of view. I could perhaps hear their conversation if there weren’t too many zombies.

  The two I found I finished quickly. The light of my spells wouldn’t be seen by those I spied upon since there was a stone wall between us. I was suddenly extra thankful for the leather shoes. They made me nearly silent.

  Hearing them was no trouble. The room they were in acted as a magnifier for the sound they were making. It carried their voices right to me.

  “She is allowing humans to grow in power to feed off of their excess auras?”

  “Yes. I am sure of it.”

  “And this just began?”

  “Today.”

  “Very well. The old hag has broken the covenant. Here is your reward. I’ll take care of the rest. It would be wise for you to disappear in a day or two. I can’t promise you will live when I return.”

  There was a clank of what I was sure were coins. The imp was betraying the Mistress? Why?

  This didn’t bode well for me or any of the humans. Whatever enemy she had would most likely kill us or worse if anything happened to her.

  The hooded figure left the room first. I was able to steal a glance, and I saw it was a hooded, hunched over figure that floated more than walked.

  Unknown Title

  Lich

  Level ?

  HP ?

  MP ?

  Str: ?

  Dex: ?

  Con: ?

  Int: ?

  Wis: ?

  Description: ?

  That was all the information there though. I at least knew it was a lich, but its level was just too high. There was no way I could defeat him or the imp. The only thought that made any sense was to tell the Mistress, but even that had its dangers. I had little choice. It seemed the way to give us the best evel opportunity of survival was to rely on her.

  I let the imp leave next and I waited before he was out of the large room before I followed. It was as I was heading toward the entrance that another scuffle of feet made a commotion. About 50 meters away there was a Lesser Skeleton, a stronger variety than the first ones I faced, and he was heading my way.

  There was no time to think up a strategy. I cast Decay, and then Heal immediately after. It took two heals to finish it.

  As it died, it gave bonus experience, but the timing was terrible. I turned and saw the imp had returned and was scanning the room to see what the commotion was.

  I was stuck. There was no way I wouldn’t be seen. I ran.

  Quickly I found myself in the same room I had hidden in just moments ago. The zombies had yet to respawn.

  I had only a handful of seconds to think up a plan. A gamble was a better way to describe what I intended.

  When the imp entered the room, outrage skewed its face. There were no questions. He greeted me by casting Pain.

  The imp probably had more deadly spells to attack me with, but I was hoping this was how things would go.

  I could have easily cast a spell before he did, but I knew if he cast Pain my resistance to it might catch him by surprise. Why let him win the first round? I hoped he would let his guard down if he thought he had already won.

  Just as before, my muscles tightened before the pain came. My mind kept a semblance of focus and I cast Heal like last time. The only difference was that this time I cast it on him.

  His surprise gave me the opening I needed.

  While I was still under the effects of Pain, I cast Decay before he could recover. I was praying it would magnify the effect of Pain just like it did Heal. It was one thing I hadn’t had a chance to test.

  I cast Pain just as he started to recover.

  He screeched, “How?!”

  Seeing the spell take hold, I spammed Decay over and over as his back arched away from the cold floor. Before he could recover again, I cast Pain again. With so many casts of Decay, it was plain that it magnified its effects.

  Finally released from Pain myself, with little mana left, I unsheathed my sword and jumped on the imp as I threw a heal spell in its face. This would be my only chance.

  Driving my sword repeatedly into its gut I bashed down with my mace against its skull like a starving orc. All the while I cast Heal until my MP was drained. Whether it was my physical attacks or my healing spells that did him in I didn’t know, but I didn’t stop attacking until there was a multitude of pop-up windows and a steady stream of Level Ups; so many that I wasn’t able to count.

  With a heaving chest, I pulled myself off the dead creature. My kidnapper was dead!

  Chapter 7 – The Head Mistress

  I laid my head on the stone floor and closed my eyes. It was foolish, but I was exhausted. With a heavy sigh, I sat back up and quickly examined my surroundings. No zombies as of yet, so I began studying my windows.

  Bonus experience for defeating your first Imp!

  Bonus experience for defeating a creature 100 levels higher than you!

  A maniacal laugh would have slipped from my lips but I was too exhausted.

  Before I could bring up my status screen the zombies that I had killed before reappeared. I only had enough mana to kill one of them, so instead, I cast it on myself. The rejuvenation I felt was amazing.

  Standing up to face them, I took the zombies to task with nothing but my mace. It was like a cast iron victory dance, but much more graceful than my normal showing.

  Afterward, I checked my status screen. I was now level 83. I stood there stunned. In a single kill, I had just gained 18 levels. Suddenly I had 175 attribute points to spend.

  The possibilities now were as good as having bacon with your bacon. Extra, please! I could now put all my points into Wisdom and have over 300. I wondered if I would get any bonuses if I reached 200. I would regen 2.38 MP a second or 8,568 an hour. That’s a lot of dead zombies.

  There was also the option of getting my Intelligence to 100 which would likely give me a bonus. I’d also have over 1200 MP. There would probably be an extra increase in my maximum mana and in the damage I did.

  If I faced another imp it would be nice to be able to keep casting Pain without running out of mana so quickly. Perhaps even lifesaving.

  It wasn’t the time to make the decision. I had to warn the Mistress regardless of my fear of doing so.

  Only one thing left to do. The loot!

  Unlike the skeletons and zombies, the imp didn’t disappear when it died. Its entire body still remained.

  Not that the imp wore much in the first place, but I searched the few pockets I could find on his knee-high pants. His belt held multiple little pouches. Inside were vials of red and blue liquid. I suspected they were health and mana potions, but they were far smaller than I expected. Lying to either side of his body on the ground was a money purse and a long dagger with an obsidian-like handle. There was a ring on both of his middle fingers.

  His personal money pouch contained about 200 copper coins worth 2 silver. The other pouch the Lich had given him was filled with 30 silver, not copper coins. I had a feeling this was a small fortune.

  I had
no way yet of identifying the knife or two rings which I believed to be magic. They would have to wait.

  As insane as it sounds, I put the entire beat up body of the imp into my inventory. His items I put in separate slots in hope the Mistress didn’t ask for them.

  The imp only weighed about 60 lbs. all together so even though an invisible burden was on my shoulders it was manageable.

  My trip back to base was a quick one where I only killed what got in my way. Because of the filth the dead body had left on my hands and shirt I stopped by the empty dining hall and washed with a water bottle. Afterward, I downed a few big swigs from another.

  I found one of the serving imps asleep on a chair on the other side of the food window. It was tempting to kill him for the experience, but instead, I woke him.

  “What do you want?” he complained.

  “The Mistress has been betrayed. I need to see her immediately.”

  He choked out a laugh.

  Opening my inventory just enough, I pulled out the head of the battered imp to show him how serious I was. Not only was it to make my point, but it was also a threat.

  It jarred him enough that he fell off his seat.

  Moments later he was hovering and nearly begging me to follow him.

  That was when I learned why we hadn’t seen any other passageways in the base that might be an exit. The doors were concealed by magic.

  He spoke a word in an unknown language, which I began to mouth to myself under my breath. HidaGrach, or something like that. If it worked with a passcode then this might come in handy later.

  We ascended stars that were identical to the stone the base was made from. The stone remained when we reached the top, but the room was laden with reds, purples, and gold. There was an endless supply of fabric.

  Out of the room, past a tough, well-polished steel door, we entered a hall with matching décor. Past many side rooms, some open and some closed, we finally came to the Mistress’s living quarters.

  The imp knocked on the door, more gently than I think he intended. He was shaking in fear. Perhaps this really wasn’t the best idea.